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N.B.A. Could Be Model for New Baseball Draft

When the fax machines stopped humming and all the numbers were added up shortly after midnight on Tuesday morning, the 2009 Major League Baseball draft looked a lot like the 2008 draft, despite the commissioner’s office’s efforts to rein in rookie signing bonuses.

The $15.1 million deal Stephen Strasburg agreed to with the Washington Nationals just minutes before the midnight deadline set the record for spending, but there were other high-priced contracts. In many cases, teams gave players significantly more than the amount recommended by the commissioner’s office, especially as the deadline neared and the pressure for teams to sign their draft picks mounted.

Since 2002, baseball has made recommendations to teams as a guideline to follow, but that system could be on its way out. When the current collective bargaining agreement runs out in 2011, it is expected that baseball will seek a mandatory signing system for draft picks similar to the one used by the N.B.A.

“That is an area that will be of great interest in the next round of negotiations,” said Rob Manfred, baseball’s executive vice president for labor relations. “I’m not going to speculate as to what our proposals are going to be the next time around, but I will say the purpose of the draft is to make sure the weakest team gets the best player. If you have a system like the N.B.A. or the N.F.L. has, where you know what a draft choice is going to be paid, it takes away any temptation on the part of the club to take signability into account.”

In the N.B.A., each draft position is assigned a salary figure. It can be negotiated 20 percent above or below that figure, but is now almost always 20 percent above. In the N.F.L., there is a rookie salary pool, and each team can divide up the money however it wishes, as long as it does not exceed the total.

The N.B.A. model, in place since 1995, is the most appealing because it eliminates negotiating and controls costs. Therefore, teams are not afraid to take the best available player for fear they will not be able to sign him.

“Theoretically, a fixed price for each pick in the draft is a mechanism that helps restore the draft to its original purpose,” Manfred said. “Teams know what the cost of the talent is, and they just take the best player.”

Some experts say they believe baseball will succeed in implementing the N.B.A. model during the next round of negotiations, particularly because many veteran players tend to have little or no solidarity with unproven players, and could direct the union to give in on that issue in favor of something else.

“I really think that’s where we’re headed,” said Baseball America’s executive editor, Jim Callis, a leading expert on the draft. “I think M.L.B. knows they can’t just ask teams to pay a certain number, because they’re going to ignore it. In the first round this year teams went nuts.”

Callis said all 30 teams went over the recommended slot amount, which was lowered by 10 percent across the board this year, with at least one signee.

Manfred disputes that the system is being roundly ignored and says it helps rationalize the salary structure of the draft. He pointed out that 65 percent of the players signed at or below the recommended figure and 76 percent were within 5 percent of the recommendations.

But he did acknowledge that as the deadline approached, the numbers soared, and that was when most of the top picks signed.

“The pattern has been that the tougher signings get done closer to the deadline,” Manfred said, “and are likely to be over the slot number.”

When the signings of all the picks from this year are completed (two first-round picks, Aaron Crow and Tanner Scheppers, were not restricted by the same deadline), it is expected that the total spent on the 2009 draft will be the most ever, more than the $161,048,300 spent last year when baseball relaxed pressure to stay within the guidelines.

In addition to Strasburg’s deal, which surpassed the $10.5 million Mark Prior received from the Chicago Cubs in 2001, records were set for the largest bonus for a high school player (outfielder Donavan Tate got $6.25 million from the San Diego Padres) and the largest bonus for a high school pitcher ($4.7 million for Jacob Turner from the Detroit Tigers).

According to one agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity because it might hamper his ability to negotiate, most teams concluded that spending restraint, while perhaps in the best interest of baseball, is not necessarily in the best interest of the individual teams.

“I completely agree,” said Callis, who used the Texas Rangers and their top pick, the high school pitcher Matthew Purke, as an example. “Look at the Rangers, who didn’t sign their first-round pick. I’m sure M.L.B was happy they drew a line in the sand, but is that really good for the Rangers? Are they happy today that they didn’t sign their first-round pick? I doubt it.”

A version of this article appears in print on , on page B10 of the New York edition with the headline: N.B.A. Could Be Model For New Baseball Draft. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe